


what the thunder said

by aosc



Category: The Originals (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 06:21:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11961525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: Hayley straightens. She barely hesitates. She is a mother now. And family, somehow, however fucked up and unreasonable they may be in relation to you and your sanity — comes before reason.





	what the thunder said

* * *

  
Elijah stumbles like a broken hangman into the compound in the early first light of morning, clothes tattered and shredded and matted with dried and crusting blood. Every wolf and vampire in the building knows, instinctively, the scent, the _feel_  of Elijah Mikaelson, and so, for the ones who don’t know what’s happened — they return to what they’d been doing, something lingering about the manner in which he returns, but nothing more.

 

But for those who know —

 

Hayley will remember one thing about Elijah collapsing in his bare undershirt onto the cobbled stone of the courtyard, gasping for breath. It’s a newfound confused throbbing of a pulse in his wrists, erratic and unsure of the mechanics of a body it abandoned in favor of still death centuries and centuries ago.

 

Klaus has paused at the far railing of the upper level. He looks wildly about, searching no doubt for Esther’s shadow. She’s not there, of course. Hayley doesn’t think she’d remember if she were.

 

Because for Hayley, she’ll only know the pulse beating wildly against her palms when she throws herself down at his side, clutches his wrists to her chest, which doesn’t give any stutters back, no rush of blood or of breath to show Elijah that she’s live and well.

 

Elijah murmurs her name, out of it, barely hanging on — before he succumbs to his new — human — vices.

 

*

 

“You see this —  _this_ , is what mother does!” Klaus sneers, not quite in control. Never quite in control. He paces the length of Elijah’s body, stretched out across linen sheets, fighting a fever. Hayley strokes down the length of his underarm with two fingers. He’s so — so _human_ , now. She’s not sure she understands the implications of that, no matter that she’d been just that until very, very recently.

 

She swallows against the ominous lump of cold in her throat. “Trust me, Klaus; I am very much aware of what your mother’s capable of.” She mutters her words, barely conscious of it for the hyperawareness of how she’s teetering on the verge of giving into the confusion of the situation. How the hybrid in her noticing the twists of Elijah's fingers in the sheets, the blood beating a storm beneath the skin of his temples, the demons in his skull. The remaining shreds of her humanity are trying to convince those other parts that love is _not_ freaking out on Elijah’s behalf. Or tearing through the cartilage in his blue and pale wrists. “I just think we need to breathe. To stop for one sec, for Elijah.”

 

On one hand, her ability to stop Klaus in his often murderous tracks still sparks a sense of quiet victory in her whenever she manages it. But she knows that right now, it doesn’t really matter whether she wins. For either of them. Not really. Klaus looks twice removed from acting on anything but a bout of emotion, and Hayley, well, she’s a mother now, and a sense of responsibility has rooted in her like an ancient willow, with its wiry roots and silvery bark.

 

“Very well, my _darling,_ _royal_ wolf,” he says, slowly, enunciating and rolling his tongue around his vowels as though clinging to words where actions fail him, “What would you have me do?”

 

She looks up, from where she’s become caught up in watching Elijah  _breathe_ , and how it makes her own breath — unnecessary, a waste of movement and oxygen that she clings to for the habit of it — rattle. Klaus’ eyes are green and savage and nearly feverish with intent. Bright with the unnatural and bloodthirsty energy he spreads around like he’s carrying on a bottle of his own personal brand of contagious hybrid fairy dust.

 

Hayley straightens. She barely hesitates. She is a mother now. And family, somehow, comes before reason.

 

“Go find your mother,” she says, and she knows, that she is unleashing hell upon the streets and alleys of the Quarter.

 

Klaus is gone in the breath of a second. Hayley can’t bring herself to care about any casualties he leaves in his trail.

 

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> rooting up a few WIPs from A Long Time Ago, and felt that this was a small, uncut stone that deserved the polish of its own post. i don’t even remember where in the show this takes place, lol. S1/S2? i don’t know, man, but i know i miss phoebe tonkin on my tv


End file.
